Swiped from Notes from the Tundra:
An anti-semitic group has googlebombed the word “Jew” so that searches for the word make their own own nasty page Google’s first hit. When you type in “jew” and hit “I’m feeling lucky” on Google, you get to their website. If you link to wikipedia’s page for it, like this ~ Jew ~ then eventually, google’s first hit will end up there.
Jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew, jew
(If you’re not familiar with it, you can read more about google bombing here.).
Oh my… done! (scroll to bottom.) I assume that is sufficient for the google bomb?
It obviously would help even more if I had content instead of just stuff in an isolated word with a link. Do you happen to know any Jewish knitters?
Also, do you know… does it help to add the word and link to many pages at the same site?
And there are some more informative pages about Jew at this Jew site. Also some religious Jew information, and a dating site for single Jews. (It’d be nice to get the offending site off the front page entirely!)
I believe (techies please correct me if I’m wrong) that Google’s rating system depends on how many different sites are associating a site with a word. So I don’t think that multiple reiterations of the link at the same URL has much effect.
If you have webspace elsewhere, though, then it would probably help to stick a link there. I have an old Geocities site that I never use for anything these days, so I inserted a few links there, just to help out.
The fight back does seem to be having some effect, by the way. An LJ user (unfortunately, I forget who right now) reported two days ago that the Wikipedia entry had made it to number one, but the hate-mongers would seem to be fighting back, as it immediately dropped back down to #2. :-( Still, Wikipedia has risen from #3 to #2 and stayed there for a number of days now, so the effort clearly is having some permanent effect.
What disturbs me most about this, actually, is the idea that there are enough hateful websites out there to have made this happen. Ick.
I see that the Wikipedia page is up to #2, so just a little more linking will get it to #1. Multiple links from the same page probably don’t help. Depending on what defenses Google uses against scamming, it might even hurt (the way search engines stopped paying attention to “meta” keywords a while back because of widespread abuse).
I suggest that everyone link “Jew” to the Wikipedia page, and once that page reaches #1, start linking to the other appropriate pages in the top 10. Continue until the Nazi page is pushed down.
Also, it would be better to put one reference from the word “Jew” to the Wikipedia page on the front page of the blog, since pages with a lot of links to them are weighted more heavily by Google. If it’s in an article, that article will soon drop off the front page.
Blogs could have a sidebar section called “anti-googlebombing” for this purpose. It would work best if people use this to correct abuse, rather than engaging in abuse. Yes, I was amused that searching for “miserable failure” finds George Bush, but I’d rather have Google just work.
I put my “jew” link at the bottom, with a note indicatign its purpose is anti-google bombing.
Actually, I just established a blog for my knitters.. at (strangely) http:.//www.thedietdiary.com/blog
I may be able to convince some to put up anti-google bombs mssgs.
Lucia
Good news! The Wikipedia site is at the top!
I’ve done it too, to help keep it there, but I’m proud of the blogosphere’s response. Go us!
Just did it, too, with a quote from the Wikipedia entry including related links (namely the paragraph about “smaller groups of Jews”, which is really informative: I did know about the Falacha and, of course, the Romaniotes, but not so much about India’s Bene Israel and Cochin Jews).
However, that infamous site is on top again, and Wikipedia right after.
(Jake, something must have been missing in your HTML tag, your link is not working).
Try this
Weirdness. I can’t figure out why it’s not working, I’m doing the tags right. Huh. Well, the link is http://www.livejournal.com/users/w1ldc47/10315.html, so I guess you could just cut and paste. Sorry about that.
Done. Thanks for sharing this.
The sad thing is that I saw a number of shall we say ‘right wing sites’ urging people not to do this because it would be bad for the google system.
Happy Easter, indeed!
Not do what? Not add the links to Wikipedia? Or not add the links to the hatemongering site?
Of course, both, in some sense are bad for the google system… but are we supposed to just let hatemongers screw it up?
Of course, both, in some sense are bad for the google system… but are we supposed to just let hatemongers screw it up?
Yeah, agreed, and besides, the Wikipedia entry is at least a relatively neutral informative source. It’s better than fighting a hate site with…oh, I dunno, a link to a “convert to Judaism now!” site (if such a thing even exists), or to a rabidly Zionist site, or something like that.
Linking the word “Jew” to an encyclopedia discussion of the term is not Google abuse; it makes Google work better. If a child in an area where there are few Jews hears the term, and does a search on it, she will find a good answer on its meaning from Wikipedia.
Judaism is an intrinsically non-prostletyizing religion (if I spelled that right). If you do find a “convert to Judaism” site, please send me the link. It should be hilarious.
(sorry, I don’t mean to mock you, if that seems like it’s a mocking tone. It’s just that there’s all these hilarious “convert to Judaism” imagery that’s randomly popping to my head)
Lucia:
Not add a link to Wikipedia.
Done.
Jake:
Thanks, I copied-pasted the URL and was able to see your post.
The proper tag is as follows, with “inferior/superior to” signs instead of brackets:
[a href=”http://www.livejournal.com/users/w1ldc47/10315.html”]Jake’s link[/a]
After replacing the brackets, you should get:
Jake’s link
Alas, they’re still on top. Nonetheless, I’m somehow reassured to see that the corresponding keyword on Google France (“juif“), brings a “jewish marriage” site on the first rank (and the “liberal”, i.e. progressive Jewish Movement is third, not bad at all).
I’m even more glad to see that the first result for youtairen 猶太人 (“Jew”) on Google Taiwan is the Chinese-language Wiki entry (in fact, that’s more or less symbolic, since the entry consists currently in only one sentence: “The Jews are the followers of the Jewish religion”).
Judaism is an intrinsically non-prostletyizing religion (if I spelled that right). If you do find a “convert to Judaism” site, please send me the link. It should be hilarious.
(sorry, I don’t mean to mock you, if that seems like it’s a mocking tone. It’s just that there’s all these hilarious “convert to Judaism” imagery that’s randomly popping to my head)
Absolutely no mockage inferred, Raznor! I had the same amusement. I imagined a website that would crash your computer the first three times you clicked on its link. ;-)
People are so very wacky, though, that I felt convinced there had to be one out there, so I went looking. Well…desultorily looking. “Looking,” as in “checking out the first page of Google results.” You’ll be pleased to know that no loony evangelical Jewish sites came up.
Sort of a relief, that, really.
Go away, you nasty spamming p**pyhead!
(Amp, did you know I can say “fuck” on the blog, but I can’t say p**p; it’s considered objectionable.
But I like the word p**pyhead. It’s funnier than “shithead”–another word that means the same thing, except it’s cruder and it’s allowed. Anyhow, not protesting–it’s your blog. I’m just pointing it out in case you didn’t know it.)
(Sheelzebub was talking to a spam post I’ve just deleted, not to Elkins!)
Sheezlebub, just for you, I’ve modified my spamblocker to allow the word “poop.” So poop-talk as much as you’d like!
Poop, I say.
Poop.
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